I’ve seen a ton of people saying Roger Goodell should use Rule 17 to replay part of the game (or maybe the entire thing). He can’t — that’s not how Rule 17 works.

A former Rams player was an official during the game

Phil McKinnely was indeed a Rams player in 1981, and he also played for the Bears and Falcons. He was typically on Vinovich’s crew, but wasn’t for this game.

Vinovich must have seen the play when it happened

This is one I hear a lot; after the game, referee Bill Vinovich said “I personally have not seen the play” and people were outraged. How could the referee have not seen that play? Well, because it’s not his job. You can argue that other officials saw the play and should have thrown a flag, but Vinovich has a responsibility in the backfield. If he had watched the play unfold, then you’d have a right be to upset because he wouldn’t be doing his job very well.

There’s quite a bit more to this, and I encourage you to check out Ben’s full post for lots of details.

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The season is nearly upon us. Check out the 2015 page and we’ll be populating it with assignments as we learn them. If you hear of any that you can help with, please comment on that week and help us out. Enjoy the games!

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We get it — people are passionate about football. However, lately the comments have been getting a bit crazy. We looked at a few options to get things under control and decided to simply use open registration to handle it.

We considered pre-moderating comments, but that can really stifle conversation if lots of time goes by before I have a chance to approve them. On the other hand, we could have user registration process require moderation, but that becomes a lot of work as well.

As of now, you’ll need to be registered in order to comment but the registration is free and completely open. We’ll see how it goes. You can register here and get back to commenting! If you have other thoughts on how it could be handled better, please let us know. Thanks!